Category Archives: English

Church Intern – Grace Church Truro

Access to Internships (A2I), Administration, Charity and Development Work, Classics and Ancient History, Education, Teaching and Research, English, Philosophy

What were your main roles and responsibilities during the course of your internship?

My internship involved theology study and assignments, leadership development training and working with a partner charity of Grace Church, Christians Against Poverty. My key area of responsibility was as a Christians Against Poverty ‘Job Club Coach’, helping those who have been out of work to find their way back to different jobs.

What would you say was your biggest achievement over the course of your internship?

My biggest achievement was working as a CAP Job Club coach, aiming to help people from low social-economic backgrounds find their way into jobs – it was a challenging and rewarding role.

What benefits did your internship bring to your employer?

Personally I benefited hugely from the theology training and leadership development. I gained a clearer understanding of the types of roles I am interested in taking in the future.

Archive Assistant – Unfinished Histories

Access to Internships (A2I), Administration, Art History and Visual Culture, Classics and Ancient History, English, Libraries and Heritage

What were your main roles and responsibilities during the course of your internship?

Assisting in the cataloguing of the Inter-Action Archive, sorting through new documents for relevant material, helping set up a Facebook page for the project, and transcribing interviews with key members of Inter-Action.

What would you say was your biggest achievement over the course of your internship?

Being able to make practical use of my research skills in a professional environment – rather than using it to write essays I actually got to use my research and analytical skills to analyse key documents and organise documents accordingly.

What benefits did your internship bring to your employer?

The main benefit was probably helping them get through archival material and organise them accordingly which in turn allowed them to search through other garages to collect more documents. Also, I helped in establishing a Facebook page which will make it easier to post updates on the project as well as getting in contact with people who were part of the Inter-Action community group.

What skills were you able to develop through the internship?

Communication, focus on goals and outcomes, IT

What attributes were you able to develop through the internship?

Confidence, initiative, motivation

Marketing and Communications Intern –upReach

Access to Internships (A2I), Advertising, Marketing and PR, Business and Management, English, Media, Publishing and Journalism

What were your main roles and responsibilities during the course of your internship?

Audit the current videos on the upReach portal and produce more, research and implement a new mock video interview platform, design and create content for the new My University page on the upReach portal and any other small ad hoc tasks and projects such as designing layouts, providing feedback on ideas and working on the new podcast idea.

What would you say was your biggest achievement over the course of your internship?

As an associate of upReach, I was able to provide any feedback to the team from the POV of someone who receives their services. I gave one idea about holding mock assessment centre days as that is something I believe many associates, including myself, will sign up to. This idea was taken well and is now in the works to being implemented later in the year!

What benefits did your internship bring to your employer?

I was lucky enough to be part of a big project for fund-raising and had to plan and produce a video for the application in just 2 days. I felt really included and valued in the meetings rather than just an intern and actually produced a good video under time constraints and pressure! We were able to apply to for the grant in time and hopefully we will get it!

What skills were you able to develop through the internship?

Teamwork and collaboration, IT, research

What attributes were you able to develop through the internship?

Creative thinking, work ethic, confidence

Content Writer and PR – University of Exeter

Advertising, Marketing and PR, Business and Management, English, Media, Publishing and Journalism, Student Campus Partnership (SCP)

What were your main roles and responsibilities during the course of your internship?

My main roles included; creating online content and blogs for the clients I represented at the company, doing digital PR (link building and email templates) and later I also did some account managing.

What would you say was your biggest achievement over the course of your internship?

I think my biggest achievement was becoming an active member of a company and realising how my contributions positively affected the company’s reputation.

What benefits did your internship bring to your employer?

It enabled them to provide us with a set of responsibilities that meant they could focus on more important tasks at hand. I was able to help increase the amount of content produced at the company within a short time period.

What skills were you able to develop through the internship?

Problem solving, customer service, networking

What attributes were you able to develop through the internship?

Initiative, independence, professionalism

Insight, Intelligence and Communications Intern – Southampton City Council

Access to Internships (A2I), Administration, Business and Management, Economics, English, Law, Management and Consultancy, Philosophy, Politics and Government, Politics and International Relations

What were your main roles and responsibilities during the course of your internship?

I conducted a preparatory briefing on the Brexit White Paper which is circulated to senior staff and councillors of Southampton and completed a task concerning the mapping of public sector and third sector services that tackle serious violence in Southampton in order to inform the council’s decision to bid for Serious Violence Strategy funding. I created a local needs assessment that included current statistics regarding violent, knife, and hate crime, domestic abuse, reoffending rates, comparing the data nationally with statistical neighbours and per individual wards. Additionally, the needs assessment included data on looked after children, deprivation areas and school absences to coincide with the strategy’s youth prevention priority. I reviewed an annual report that records the progress of the actions that respond to the Youth Justice Strategy. From this report I deduced whether the action will remain for the forthcoming year or whether full progress had been made and thus a new action would take its place.

What would you say was your biggest achievement over the course of your internship?

I realised my potential within the policy team and have definitely decided this is the career for me. Specifically, I actually aided the team with their work, especially with the creation of the local needs assessment and thus my internship was beneficial for everyone!

What benefits did your internship bring to your employer?

I efficiently completed each task quicker than expected thus, freed up the teams work to do other tasks.

What skills were you able to develop through the internship?

Problem solving, strategic planning, focus of goals and outcomes

What attributes were you able to develop through the internship?

Confidence, cultural awareness, logical thinking

Museum Assistant – Museum of Witchcraft and Magic

Access to Internships (A2I), Administration, Archaeology and Anthropology, Art History and Visual Culture, Classics and Ancient History, Education, Teaching and Research, English, History, Libraries and Heritage, Sociology and Criminology

What were your main roles and responsibilities during the course of your internship?

My main responsibilities included cataloguing museum exhibition objects, researching museum objects, and updating the database. The cataloguing and research generally centered on the current Ritual Magic exhibition called ‘Dew of Heaven’. The bulk of the cataloguing material included a donation of various 20th century occult materials, which required further research using the museum library and the internet, and making links to other objects in the museum’s collections. Another main task involved scanning in object labels made by the museum’s founder and matching them with their corresponding objects where possible. Some of my minor tasks also included setting the museum up in the morning – sweeping and lighting incense, as well as operating the till.

What would you say was your biggest achievement over the course of your internship?

My biggest achievement over the course of my internship included using my research skills to uncover information about the members of the late 19th and early 20th century occultist Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Various sources revealed fascinating and enlightening information about the order’s then-secret members. This task was a part of the cataloguing project that was one of my responsibilities, which I successfully completed by the end of my internship, which I then outlined in a blog post on the museum’s website.

What benefits did your internship bring to your employer?

I was able to finish a whole box file of labels which needed scanning and cataloguing on the online database, and I helped with research regarding the cataloguing project which lightened the workload of my colleagues and ensured that anyone seeking information about the objects would find a comprehensive description of them with links to related objects at the museum, as well as the sources that could provide further data.

What skills were you able to develop through the internship?

Teamwork and collaboration, customer service, focus on goals and outcomes

What attributes were you able to develop through the internship?

Initiative, independence, work ethic, professionalism

HR Administrator – Fugro GB Marine Ltd

Access to Internships (A2I), Administration, Business and Management, English, Human Resources, Recruitment and Training, Law, Law and Legal Services, Philosophy

What were your main roles and responsibilities during the course of your internship?

Uploading vacancies to our website, intranet, and job boards, organising the recruitment mailbox and ensure hiring managers receive all incoming applications, arranging interviews and tests, as well as inductions, by liaising with candidates and managers, receiving all right to work documentation, CV’s and new starter forms and filing these appropriately, drafting letters to employees and new starters for salary reviews, contractual changes and promotions, navigating and where required, updating, company processes for recruitment and resignations, coordinating leavers, including confirming any final payroll deductions and booking exit interviews, creating contracts for new starters and inputting contractual changes to our systems for current staff, handling rejections, offers, queries, and the day to day requests for the HR Department.

What would you say was your biggest achievement over the course of your internship?

I learnt a lot of information about the HR sector – developing skills in contracts, documentation and the importance of attention to detail in relation to this, and generally improved the formulation of processes and strategies to aid efficiency!

What benefits did your internship bring to your employer?

I have eased the pressures on a very busy HR department, allowing HR Advisors to actually complete their advisor work rather than administrative tasks. I have also noted necessary changes to previous procedures in admin, making processes more user friendly and less time-consuming.

What skills were you able to develop through the internship?

Communication, organisation, focus on goals and outcomes

What attributes were you able to develop through the internship?

Commercial awareness, motivation, personal awareness

Eleanor, Careers Information and Student Engagement Assistant

English, Graduate Business Partnership (GBP)

Degree: Literary Studies MA 2017

Job Role: A Careers Information and Student Engagement Assistant provides careers information and advice to students and recent graduates, and supporting the student engagement agenda.

Eleanor’s Experience: My role within the Careers Team includes manning the Career Zone desk at St Luke’s, providing careers support for students on an ad-hoc basis and running CV review appointments. I also work alongside colleagues in the Guild to facilitate academic representation in the Medical School. The GBP role is very varied and busy and has provided me with lots of opportunities to develop my skills and decide what I want out of my next job opportunity.

 

Recruitment Resourcing Intern

Access to Internships (A2I), English, Human Resources, Recruitment and Training,

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What were your main duties and responsibilities during the course of your internship?

I was responsible for resourcing new candidates through head hunting, cold calling, Linkedin message and email – working towards my target of 20 active candidates per week. I also identified and contacted relevant candidates from the company’s existing database. I carried out the initial screening of candidates for senior consultant, either through a phone call or email communication. I was tasked with formatting candidate CVs and job specs, with a quick ten minute turn-around time, whilst still maintaining accuracy and attention to detail. I also picked out relevant and interesting media related news articles to post to the company social media page each morning. Finally, I developed and maintained resourcing spreadsheet in Excel and researched and built organisation charts for key clients.

What would you say was your biggest achievement over the course of your internship?

I gained full end to end knowledge of the market in which I was recruiting (Ad Operations and the Programmatic landscape), something of which I had no knowledge before starting my internship. After receiving my initial training, I presented my understanding of the market back to the team. Towards the end of my internship, I then did my presentation for a second time, this time explaining my deeper understanding and working to improve on my first attempt.

What benefits did your internship bring to your employer?

In my role as a resourcer, I was responsible for contacting as many relevant candidates as possible. Over the course of my internship, I initiated conversation with around 400 different people, finding whether out whether or not they were open to new opportunities. Of this, around 130 people were interested in new opportunities – I liased between these candidates and my senior consultant, in order to gain their details and work out which roles they would be suitable for. Of my sourced candidates, 16 different people had 30 different interviews, as a result of me contacting them.

Did you encounter any problems during the course of your internship and if so, how did you overcome them?

I encountered a difficulty in that, as an intern, I didn’t have access to a ‘Linkedin Recruiter’ account which enables you to message an unlimited number of potential candidates, and is an essential resource to the rest of the team in order to reach as many people as possible. I was therefore unable to use the search function on Linkedin, and so was limited in the number of candidates I was able to find. I overcame this my alerting my senior colleague to the issue and asking for a list of names I could work through manually instead.

“Caitlin has been a valuable asset to our team. She has picked up significant knowledge of the digital advertising industry and is now interviewing for two full time positions within digital advertising due to the experience gained with us” – Line Manager. 

Content Writer – Click Hub

Access to Internships (A2I), Advertising, Marketing and PR, English, Media, Publishing and Journalism, Student Business Partnership (SBP),

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What were your main duties and responsibilities during the course of your internship?

Over the years I learned a great deal, not just about digital marketing but about a whole range of industries as I was relied upon to write regular content and website copy for miscellaneous clients. From web designers to interior designers, builders, dentists, and accountants – you name the industry, I probably wrote a blog about it. I had the opportunity to learn more about digital marketing. I became more interested in the workings behind SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), and watching our clients progress up the Google rankings, and I took my Adwords exam to become Google certified.

What would you say was your biggest achievement over the course of your internship?

Half way through my final year of study, the Company Director offered me a full-time position commencing after graduation. For me, not only was my internship a fantastic opportunity to apply my academic abilities in a professional environment, build my confidence and develop my employability skills, but without the internship I probably wouldn’t have ended up working for the company after I graduated too.

 

Did you encounter any problems during the course of your internship and if so, how did you overcome them?

It was a role that taught me to be flexible as well as hugely self-motivated since much of the work was carried out at home.  When I began my full-time position as Marketing Executive I was thrown in at the deep and expected to stay afloat because an SME won’t have the same resources as a larger firm when it comes to training. This has the potential to feel overwhelming but it also allows you to develop in other ways. What’s more, you’re in a company you know has invested in you because, over the course of your internship, they got to know you and saw value in you.

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